


Santa's Booming Workshop

by coolbreeze1



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Atlantis, Comment Fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-01
Updated: 2011-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-25 14:45:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolbreeze1/pseuds/coolbreeze1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Put enough science projects in a room and something's bound to explode. Written for a comment fic exchange over at sgahcchallenges many moons ago!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Santa's Booming Workshop

The civilian contingent had spread out over the inhabited zone of Atlantis, dotting the city with lab after lab after lab from the first day the expedition arrived in Pegasus. Biology labs, zoology labs, chemistry labs, medical labs, physics labs—every lab imaginable doing every experiment imaginable and then some.

John’s favorite lab, however, was one of the large engineering ones on the north side of the city. It wasn’t so much a lab as it was a tinkering mechanic’s heaven. And more of a remodeled cargo hold. The room was nearly the size of a football field, with little rooms off to the side, and experiments and inventions in every square inch of space. Even some of the Marines had cleared small areas for their own tinkering.

On days off, John would meander through the room, looking over people’s shoulders, sometimes giving someone a hand. There were engines of all shapes and sizes, telescopes, microscopes, stuff involving optics and lasers, wheels, robots, levers—some of it practical tools and devices but most of it toys. Their very own Santa’s Workshop.

Add in a little Ancient tech, and Santa’s elves were creating awesome toys. _Hovering remote-control toy jumper_ awesome.

John was in the control room when the first alarms went off. He crossed the room in three long steps to the map, saw the flashing red dot over the workshop and sprinted toward the transporter, yelling out orders for a fire suppression unit and a medical team. Lorne met up with him half way, a team of Marines at his back.

“Explosion in the workshop,” John huffed as he ran. He saw Lorne nod, picking up the pace.

“Bound to happen eventually.”

“If they destroyed my remote-control jumper, heads will roll.”

The doors to the workshop flew open as they approached and John caught the faint scent of burning rubber. There was no smoke, however, or flames, or an irritatingly calm computer voice counting down the destruction of the entire city. Whatever had exploded had had the courtesy to do it in one of the small rooms off to the side, far away from John and Radek’s toy jumper project.

John and Lorne weaved through the tables toward the corner of the workshop, the first trails of smoke finally visible through a crack in the door. The four-man Marine unit followed them, grabbing metal bars at John’s command. John could hear voices on the other side of the door yelling for help and banging against the metal frame, the noise coalescing with the urgent but calm voices shouting out orders through his radio earpiece and the grunts of men trying to pry open the unresponsive Ancient door. The smoke was getting thicker and darker, the smell pungent.

Between him, Lorne, and the four Marines, the door was not much of an obstacle—Ancient design be damned. Two engineers fell out of the opening, collapsing to the ground in a coughing heap of soot and charred clothing.

“What happened?” John asked, leaning toward the nearest engineer and speaking loud enough to get the dazed man’s attention.

The man blinked, shaking his head. A line of blood dripped down the side of his face from a small cut on his cheek. “Over…overload,” he rasped out. “Not sure…”

“Was it just the two of you in there?”

The man started, looking around. “Three—there were three of us.”

John would have said more, but something popped in the room behind him, and the burning smell got worse. The engineer he’d been talking to dissolved into a fit of coughing, and John stepped back to let two of the Marines manhandle the injured man away from the door.

“Lorne, get these men away from here. The medics should be hitting the outer hall any minute now, and if something else in there explodes, I don’t know want anyone else getting hurt.”

The major was already moving, grabbing three of the four Marines with them to help the two injured men across the workshop. John signaled to the fourth.

“There’s one more guy in there. Stay a few feet behind me and keep your eyes on the door. That smoke is getting thick and I don’t want to lose our exit.”

“Yes, sir.”

John ducked into the room, crouching as low to the ground as he could without compromising his speed. Smoke peeled across the ceiling in waves. He’d never been into this particular room, and the flickering lights overhead were making it impossible to see anything. The far side of the room was filled with three large metal boxes, connected to an array of computer consoles with every type of wire imaginable. The smallest of the metal boxes—he honestly had no idea what they were supposed to be just by looking at them—was sparking and hissing, spewing inky black smoke.

“Hey! Anyone in here?” John yelled out. His voice thundered in the small space, sounding muted and amplified all at the same time. The small sparking box popped in response, a booming clap that had John hitting the ground and wrapping his arms over his head.

He paused, waiting for the eminent explosion. When nothing happened, he looked around. Arms of flame, angry red against the black smoke, were now flicking out of the top of the box. He pushed himself to his knees and looked around again, coughing at the smoke and the invading odor of burning paint, rubber, metal, and plastic.

“Here…”

He heard the soft whisper and looked over just in time to see a white sleeve waving at him. He crawled forward, wary of the building smoke. He should have at least covered his mouth and nose, but it hadn’t been that bad when he ran in. The smoke had been high and flowing across the ceiling, not drifting toward the ground in an ominous cloud.

John reached the third engineer and yanked the man forward. The hissing metal box had pissed off its neighbor, and its neighbor was a much larger metal box with a lot more pieces hanging off it. John ducked as sparks jumped along the wires connecting the two boxes—and really, what the hell were these guys doing in here?—forcing the semi-conscious engineer along.

“Sergeant?” he yelled out when he thought he could see the door.

“Right here, sir,” the man answered back, and both metal boxes answered with a pop and spitting burst of flames.

John looked around, eyes and throat burning, and just saw the sergeant on hands and knees in front of him, a silhouette against the door. He pushed the engineer toward the Marine, letting the other man take the now-unconscious man’s weight, and followed them, his lungs aching for the beckoning fresh air.

The lab—as most labs on Atlantis seemed to do eventually—exploded. At least that’s what if felt like to John. One second he was crawling toward the open door, the next he felt a roar of heat and smoke rush over him. The sound hit a second later, a sonic boom that thudded through his very core. He felt a sharp crack of pain across his chest and arm, and then nothing.

“Colonel Sheppard?” The voice was familiar but muffled, and sounding slightly panicked. “Colonel, where are you?”

John blinked open his eyes to see the same dark smoke swirling above him. He couldn’t have been unconscious for long, if at all. Same smoke, same hissing, popping metal boxes, same burning ache in his throat and lungs. He should have waited for the fire unit, but then he remembered the unconscious engineer and the explosion, and he wondered if the man would have survived if he’d waited.

Or if he was even alive now. He couldn’t see him or the sergeant anywhere. Tables and computer consoles and other unidentifiable pieces of metal lay strewn across the lab. John was tucked into a corner, about as far away as he could get from the angry boxes but buried in debris. He pushed at the piece laying across his chest then whimpered in pain when it only dug deeper into his chest and arm.

“Colonel?” Lorne yelled again. John rolled his head to the side and saw the major sliding across the ground toward him, a smudge of black against gray.

“Lorne,” John called out, then coughed, then moaned. He squeezed his eyes shut, panting against too little oxygen and too much pressure on his ribs.

“Sir,” Lorne’s voice sounded near his head, and he opened his eyes to see the major’s dirt covered face staring down at him. “How badly are you hurt?”

John licked his lips, dreading speaking but knowing he had to. “Chest hurts, and arm. Can’t—” he stopped, coughing again and sending a flood of pain cascading through his entire body. He lifted his free arm to point toward half console pinning him to the floor. “Too heavy.”

“Got it, sir,” the major answered, also coughing, but he’d had the presence of mind to cover his mouth and nose with a cloth. “On three—one, two, three!”

Lorne pulled, and John pushed with one hand until the console fell away from him, crying out at both the instant relief from the pressure and the pulsing ache that danced across his ribs like the sparks of electricity shooting along the wires behind Lorne’s head, back and forth between the two boxes. John gasped, sucking in a lungful of air that did little to ease the tightness in his lungs. He banged his left arm against the ground, but the right—the one that had been pinned against his chest beneath the console—lay inert.

Lorne was coughing again, then suddenly leaning over John’s head and wiping a sleeve across his forehead. “I need to get you out of here and I can’t wait for the medical team,” he yelled, and John suddenly noticed that there was a lot more noise in the room. The two little angry boxes were almost shaking with rage now, igniting the fury in the final and largest box in the room. It occurred to John that he should name the boxes, and he glared at the blinking lights on the large box. It glared back, eyes glowing red.

“Sir!”

“What?” John asked, his eyes sliding back Lorne’s face, pale and dirty and worried. He dragged in another breath and felt the room spin, but at least he didn’t cough.

“Are you hurt anywhere else? Your back or neck?”

John shook his head, not daring to speak. Whatever was sparking along the ceiling was now in his throat and lungs. He felt a hand on his shoulder and then Lorne disappeared, but John could still hear him. A pressure he hadn’t realized was there suddenly lifted from his legs, and he winced as he flexed his feet. Bruised, but not broken.

“Here we go, Colonel. This is going to hurt like hell, so I apologize in advance and don’t demote me.”

John blinked up at Lorne, only catching half of what the man said, and then Angry Big Brother Box blew its top—literally. Flames leapt from it, locks of fiery-red hair standing on end. John smiled and would have laughed, but Lorne chose that moment to pick him up under his arms and drag him across the room, and his voice caught in his throat. John saw the smaller metal boxes bowing into the heat of big brother, and then his broken arm banged against the doorframe and everything faded.

 

* * *

 

“Good morning, sir,” the major said, making a show of knocking against the curtain.

John scowled, pressing his head against the pillow because damn his head hurt. And his arm. And his chest. And the nasal cannula itched—although it was a tad better than the mask had been.

“I won’t ask how you’re feeling,” Lorne said, trying and failing to hide his grin.

“That would be wise for your career,” John rasped, his scowl deepening at the burning ache in his throat. “Thank you, by the way—for the whole, you know…”

“Yes, sir,” Lorne said. “I was just checking on Dr. Greensburg and thought I’d see how you were doing?”

“Greensburg?”

“Engineer number three. Doc says he’ll be fine in a few days.”

John nodded. At least that made one of them. He, on the other hand, would be lounging around the infirmary and his room for the next couple of weeks nursing a couple of bruised ribs, a broken arm and a mild concussion—not to mention the whole smoke-inhalation problem. No one else involved in this whole mess had been required to spend more than a few hours in the infirmary.

“What were they working on in there anyway?” Because he couldn’t get the image of those three pissed-off box faces with fire for hair out of his head.

“You know, I asked about that and all three were very eager to tell me what they were working on, but I’ll be damned if I understood a word they said. You might want to get the translation from Zelenka on that one. Oh, and while you’re at, you may also want to ask him about your toy jumpers.”

“Right, whatever.” John sighed, rolling the tension out of his shoulders and feeling the pull of sleep. Lorne waved then disappeared around the curtain, and John closed his eyes, knowing someone would be around soon to check on him. He was determined to get in a nap before then, and maybe even… Wait. Ask Zelenka about his…

“What about my jumpers? Lorne!!”

END


End file.
